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With only 5 percent of the world's population, United States citizens consume 28 percent of its nonrenewable resources, drive more than one-third of its automobiles, and use 21 times more water per capita than Europeans do.
(A) With (B) As (C) Being (D) Despite having (E) Although accounting for
With only 5 percent of the world's population, United States citizens
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11 Aug 2011, 09:25
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With only 5 percent of the world's population, United States citizens consume 28 percent of its nonrenewable resources, drive more than one-third of its automobiles, and use 21 times more water per capita than Europeans do.
(A) With ---- with means that the US citizens are having 5% of the world population
(B) As – As without a verb means ‘in the role of’ – So the US citizens seems to play the role of 5% of the World population
(C) Being – As a thumb rule, ‘being’ used as a modifier is wrong in GMAT
(D) Despite having --- having means possessing. Wrong meaning
(E) Although accounting for--- best choice.
Now, for the question whether the subordinate conjunction although doesn’t entail a verb, the answer is that although when used at the beginning of a sentence, can be used as part of a modifier phrase without a verb. On the contrary when although is used at the end of the sentence, it can only be used in a clause. _________________
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Re: Despite having vs although accounting for..
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15 Nov 2009, 01:38
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I think the answer is E.
The subject is "United States citizens". If we flip the sentence around it might help.
United States citizens "with" only 5 percent of the world’s population -> wrong United States citizens "as" only 5 percent of the world’s population -> seems a bit wrong United States citizens "being" only 5 percent of the world’s population -> strange sentence construction United States citizens "despite having" only 5 percent of the world’s population -> this would be correct if it was united states instead of citizens United States citizens "although accounting for" only 5 percent of the world’s population -> citizens can account for 5% so this seems right to me.
Re: With only 5 percent of the world's population, United States citizens
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20 Jun 2011, 10:48
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metallicafan wrote:
I have my doubts about E.
"Although" cannot be followed by a noun phrase; it needs a clause. Thoughts?
Good point here, I remember reading something like this in the Idioms chapter and it made me scan through the MG SC guide again. What's stated there is 'Although' should 'generally' be followed by a clause. Since this is not out and out a strict rule, in the absence of a better answer choice we could ignore this rule. The following statement has been marked 'suspect' in SC guide and not 'wrong': "Although a frequent napper, I study effectively"
I voted for E because the statement needed a contrast, but I still can't figure out why 'As' is wrong. Just like "As a child, I thought I could fly" is correct, why is "As X, United States citizens...." wrong? Can't we use 'As' as a preposition here and isn't X = "Only 5% of the world's population" a noun phrase? I guess I'm missing something silly here...
Re: With only 5 percent of the world's population, United States citizens
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06 Jan 2016, 18:14
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Maybe. But not in E alone, in all choices. You see, the citizens part is not even underlined. But I think the point of this question is whether the modifiers fit in logically with what they seek to modify.
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Re: Despite having vs although accounting for..
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22 Mar 2017, 04:15
Dear mikemcgarry sir, How are you? Would you please help me with this question?
"although accounting for" is correct answer, Why not "although accounted for"? What's the difference between these two? I think C (being) is wrong, but i can't understand why...
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27 Mar 2017, 15:35
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nahid78 wrote:
Dear mikemcgarry sir, How are you? Would you please help me with this question?
"although accounting for" is correct answer, Why not "although accounted for"? What's the difference between these two? I think C (being) is wrong, but i can't understand why...
My friend, with all due respect, you really need to develop a habit of reading. So many of your questions, such as this one, give evidence of your lack of experience with the subtleties of the English language. They are evidence of a mind that has a large knowledge of abstract rules rather than access to direct experience. Rules simply will not get you to SC mastery. This is very important to appreciate. Again, I will recommend: How to Improve Your GMAT Verbal Score
The short answer to your question is the substitution that you propose makes absolutely no sense.
What we have here is a structure of [subordinating conjunction] + [participle]. Since subordinating conjunctions have to be followed by a full [noun] + [verb] clause, there always has to be an implied pronoun and auxiliary verb as part of this structure. Thus, if we included the omitted text, the OA would be: Although [they are] accounting for only 5 percent of the world’s population, United States citizens consume . . . This makes perfect sense. The present participle (the -ing form) is an active participle. This is appropriate, as the US citizens are the ones who "account" for this percent of the planet. The past participle (the -ed form) is a passive participle. Right away, that's problematic with this verb. The object of the verb structure "to account for" is always a percent or count or number. In the passive structure, this percent, "5% of the world population" would have to be the subject. Having the same subject when we change the verb from active to passive produces nonsense.
WE: Corporate Finance (Pharmaceuticals and Biotech)
With only 5 percent of the world's population, United States citizens
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18 Nov 2017, 06:54
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merajul wrote:
The best choices are obviously C & E. But Why should I choose E over C. Even C is perfectly alright from grammatical point of view
The US citizens themselves ARE (verb "to be") not 5% of the population - citizens cannot BE population, they CONSTITUTE or ACCOUNT FOR 5% of the population. Hence verb "being" (in option C) is wrong.
In country X, women ARE 50% of the population... wrong. In country X, women CONSTITUTE / ACCOUNT FOR 50% of the population... correct.
Re: With only 5 percent of the world's population, United States citizens
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06 Aug 2019, 13:19
daagh wrote:
(C) Being – As a thumb rule, ‘being’ used as a modifier is wrong in GMAT
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Hey daagh Sir, You said this back in 2011, and my apologies for that. But, I want to know more about this rule ! It is used extensively in colloquial language, but is it always incorrect to use 'being' as a modifier? and I need to know if this is one thing I definitely need to keep in mind.
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59% (00:50) correct 
